AZALEA BASKETBALL SPLITS HOME GAMES WITH REDWOOD

Seventh-grader Darrell Hopper drives baseline against a Redwood defender in the Bruins' close 54-53 loss Monday night. (The Pilot/Josh Bronson).

By Josh Bronson

Pilot staff writer

The Azalea Middle School seventh and eighth grade boys' basketball teams split a pair of home games against the Redwood Raiders Monday night.

In the first game, the seventh grade team lost a heartbreaker to the Raiders, falling 54-53.

And in the second game of the night, the eighth grade Bruins downed the Raiders 51-38.

Seventh-graders fall 54-53

After trailing by nine points at the end of the third quarter, the Bruins made a valiant comeback attempt in the fourth.

The Bruins started out the quarter with an 11-1 run, where four different Bruins scored.

Andrew Bilyeu capped off the run with a steal and layup to give the Bruins a 41-40 edge with 4:30 left in the game.

From that point on, the game was a back and forth battle with four lead changes and two ties.

With just about three minutes to play, Cade Freels scored inside for the Bruins to give them a 46-44 lead.

But the Raiders would come back and score six straight to take a four-point advantage.

The Bruins cut the lead to a single point on three different occasions  with the final time being with 16.5 seconds left  but could not quite get over the hump as time ran out on the Bruins.

In the opening quarter, the Bruin offense was running on all cylinders as they scorched the Raiders for 17 points and took a one-point lead into the second quarter.

However, in the second and third quarters, the Bruins struggled from the field  scoring all of their five points in the second quarter from the free-throw line  as the Raiders took control of the game.

The Bruins dropped 23 points in the final quarter to fuel their comeback run.

Darrell Hopper led the Bruins with 14 points on the night as he scored 10 of those points in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter.